Hey,
Currently i have 2 MSI 460hawks, but i'm planning to replace them because most of the fans are broken (bearings are shit). And replacing the fans is way too expensive for these cards (in terms of value). I was going to but a new card anyway (gtx670), so now i got a reason to do it.
Anyway, since both cards have this issue i'm pretty convinced the fans bearings are just crap by design (chinese "Long-Life"), and to prove my point i just youtubed Direct CU II fan noise/MSI Twinfrozr Fan noise and got shitload of hits. I don't want to have this same issue, since i want to enjoy this card for a while this time, so this time i'm paying more attention to this. However... most brands seem to use these Evercool/Powerlogic fans. Only the heatsinks are different. Anyone who can tell me which brand doesn't use these horrible chinese fans, and instead uses quality fans. I don't mind paying a few euro's extra, if it saves me from buying a 40euro replacement fan later on.
Already ruled out:
ASUS DCII
MSI TwinFrozr
Sincerely,
Maj.
PS: Also thought about buying the cheapest model i could find, and just buying a arctic. But then you'd have limited OC ability, and lots of coil whine due to cheap PCB components. So...yeah.